Remembering Gabriel García Márquez beautifully

It is a testament to language that so many words were used so well Thursday upon the death of Nobel Prize-winning Colombian author and world heavyweight literary champion Gabriel García Márquez. It is a testament to the wonder of Márquez that so many of these words were his own, recalled and repeated verbatim via the magical realism of memory.

Huffington Post: Gabriel García Márquez Will Live On Forever With These Words Of Wisdom

Russ R.: “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.” GGM’s first lines in “One Hundred Years of Solitude.” And oh the adventure of life between those years.

Edward Fuquay: The master of narrative has left. Farewell my friend. Your books are the best company in a lonely night.

Donaldo Gomez: “100 Years of Solitude is perhaps the most creative novel of all time.” My university professor, Dr Carlos Busono (biographer of poet Garcia Lorca) His devotion to the betterment of Latin America was complete. His mistress was the image of freedom. For half a century he inspired us and now he is forever. At the Havana Film Festival I asked him if his writing had served humanity, with that twinkle in his eye he said “I’m not certain I might have accomplished that task more effectively as a terrorist.” Adios Gabo!

Georgina S.: So sad it’s almost the ending of great authors. I have to get out there to buy some of his books to read and keep. RIP

isaacplautus: I love Marquez, but the concept of magical realism has always struck me as an uneasy categorization. It’s deeply rooted in the purtian shame of fantasy that plagued mainstream fiction in the 20th century. MR is an attempt to use the tapestry of genre without having to deal with the critical stigma of being a genre writer. Le Guin is equally deserving of the Nobel Prize as Marquez. The reason he got it and she hasn’t is because of the arbitrary marketing labels placed on their books.

Guest: I like Le Guin (and think she probably does deserve a Nobel), but she’s never written anything as beautiful as Love in the Time of Cholera.

isaacplautus: If literary beauty isn’t The Left Hand of Darkness, then where is literary beauty to be found?

Unemployed_Northeastern: What bothers me is the Garcia Marquez was not the first author to write from a “magic realist” perspective in Latin America. To say so is to disgrace the memories and legacies of, among others, the staggering Jorge Luis Borges of Argentina, the 19th century Brazilian pre-post-modernist Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, and to a lesser extent, the early 20th century Cuban author Alejo Carpentier. This isn’t meant to take away from Garcia Marquez’s legacy, of course - he was one of the greatest authors of recent times, but to examine it a bit more thoroughly. All serious authors stand on the shoulders of their predecessors and do battle with them.